Sleep Cycle gets a major overhaul [iPhone/iPod Touch]

Wow, was it really last December that I reviewed Sleep Cycle? Time seems to have flown this year, but I digress. Sleep Cycle, the clever alarm clock that works out the best time to wake you by sensing how deeply you’re sleeping, has had a major overhaul. It’s now up to version 3, and includes a number of new features and updates.

New features:

Intelligent snooze – should you choose not to get up when Sleep Cycle determines is the best point the app will go into snooze mode and wake you up at the time you set as the limit when you went to sleep the night before

More sensitivity to movement, which apparently leads to better wake up phases

No recalibration required if changing bed, pillow or mattress any more

Full support for the iPod Touch (that one’s a bit of a surprise, since I thought it was compatible before!)

iPhone 4 Retina Display support

Use music from your iPod library as the alarm noise (mine is now the theme tune from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Sleep Cycle no longer mutes audiobooks or music that are playing in the background, so you can drift off to sleep listening to your favourite tracks

No alarm mode: just analyse your sleep pattern without setting the alarm

There are a tonne of improvements too – too many to list here really, but the upgrade has made an already great app even better. One interesting change I noticed is the removal of the “dreaming” state on the sleep graphs. I can only imagine someone pointed out that users might not actually be dreaming there, but just be in a similar state… a small chance, but probably right for the sake of accuracy.